Policy on Sexual Harassment

Under this policy, sexual harassment can be verbal, visual, or physical. It can be overt, as in the suggestion that a person could get a higher grade or a raise in salary by submitting to sexual advances. The suggestion or the advance need not be direct or explicit—it can be implied from the conduct, circumstances, and relationships of the persons involved. Sexual harassment can also consist of persistent, unwelcome attempts to change a professional or academic relationship to a personal one. It can range from unwelcome sexual flirtations and inappropriate put-downs of individual persons or classes
of people to serious physical abuses such as sexual assault. Examples include, but are not limited to, unwelcome sexual advances; repeated sexually-oriented kidding, teasing, joking, or flirting; verbal abuse of a sexual nature; commentary about an individual’s body, sexual prowess, or sexual deficiencies; derogatory or demeaning comments about women or men in general, whether sexual or not: leering, touching, pinching, or brushing against another’s body; or displaying objects or pictures which are sexual in nature and which create a hostile or offensive work or living environment.